Pages

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Make your own pizza Supper Club

It was our turn to host our monthly Supper Club last weekend. We get together once a month with some of our favorite couples and the host plans the main dish. Then, the guests bring an appetizer, sides, and dessert. It’s such a fun way to catch up with our friends on a regular basis.

When we lived in Hoboken and were preparing to move back South we attended a pizza making class in the city because Corey and I are pretty big pizza snobs and we wanted to be able to make the New York pizza we’d gotten so attached to. So, I made the dough using that recipe and Corey prepared the sauce from our take-home cook book from our pizza school class. Unfortunately it’s copyrighted so I can’t post it in full here but if you want some homemade pizza tips, send me an email. I will say homemade dough makes all the difference, though, and is so much more cost efficient when making lots of pizzas (8 in our case). I use the dough hook on my Kitchen Aid mixer to do the kneading for me so it keeps it from being a lot of work.

We prepped a variety of toppings and set everyone up around the island of our kitchen. For toppings, I had fresh mozzarella, shredded mozzarella, Italian sausage, pepperoni, onions, peppers, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and basil and freshly shreddded Parmesan to add when they came out of the oven. We had two pizza stones going at once in our oven but I will say this would’ve been a great time to have double ovens!

It was a great time with friends and a little something different. Some people ended up with calzones (because pizza making really is risk free when this is your worst case scenario, right?) but we all agreed that they turned out delicious.

We've made homemade pizzas using this recipe several times and each time I feel like we've gotten better at it. Some tips:

1. Preheat a pizza stone (a pizza screen or cookie sheet are not ideal) for at least an hour at 500-550 degrees. This is a great reasonably-priced stone.

2. Make sure you flour your work surface well so your pizza doesn't stick. There's nothing worse than the most perfectly topped pizza stuck to your kitchen counter.

3. Coat your pizza peel with lots of semolina flour to be able to transfer your pizza into the oven without sticking. If you don't have semolina flour (its a coarse grind and you can find it here on Amazon), then you can use corn meal instead.

4. Use fresh, high quality ingredients. Buying bottled sauce is a waste and you won't get the authentic flavor. It is so easy to make using pureed San Marzano tomatoes, fresh garlic, and a pinch of sugar.

5. If you want the New York style Margherita pizza taste, use fresh mozzarella and use it sparingly. Less cheese is actually better.

6. Enjoy with a big glass of wine (or a cold beer) and some great friends.